FREETOWN — You might have stopped by to have a peep. Or a Peep, the word with the capital letter indicating not a quick look but the marshmallow candy that says Easter the way chocolate eggs say Easter.

Just past Assonet Village, the United Church of Assonet rises like a symbol of what people think of when they say the words “New England.”

It’s a white, wooden church, severe in its lines. It looks over a village that yearns for a bad writer to describe it as “sleepy.”

Saturday, the old, rather-Calvinist-looking church was holding, of all things, a Peep Art Show, which means parishioners and others of all ages were invited to construct art from the brightly colored marshmallow chicks.

“We got $300 from the Freetown Cultural Council,” said James O’Leary, who said he’d heard of other organizations holding Peep shows. “I can’t imagine what they thought.

“I thought this could be fun. We went to Big Lots, and we bought every Peep they had,” he said.

That was more than 100 packages of Peeps, which they handed out to possible competitors.

And they waited.

First-ever, slightly quirky events often sound far better than they look. But the Peep show, well, it caught on.

About 30 competitors, from ages 5 to well past 80, showed up Saturday and, in the wainscotted old church hall, they set out Peep designs that surprised and delighted.

“They’re just such a different medium to work with,” O’Leary said.

There was an orchestra made entirely of Peeps, the sign over it reading “Boston Peeps.”

And there was an all-marshmallow chick singing called, ah, you guessed it, The Village Peeple.

And that pink, slightly tilted building?

It was indeed the Leaning Tower of Peepsa.

The puns and the Peeps ran wild. “Give Peeps a Chance,” read the note on one peace-sign-shaped entry.

“It’s just the cutest idea I’ve ever seen,” a woman said as she approached the U-shaped arrangement of tables that held the various Peep-ery.

“There’s a little DaVinci in all of us,” said Pastor Jo Ann Carol-Wheeler, whose own entry was a cardboard church interior packed with praying Peeps.

“It brought families together to work on the project,” she said.

O’Leary knew he had a hit on his hands but he himself doesn’t eat all that many of the sugary minichickens.

“I’m not that into Peeps,” he said.

I love Peeps and have since I was a child. I eat them often and in large amounts and, while I couldn’t eat the Peep art, there were other comforts.

Page 2 of 2 - On a side table, there were the cookies you expect at all church events. But there were also cupcakes crowned with Peeps and a cake covered with Peeps pressed into the icing.

Those who came to view the Peep artwork could vote for their favorite, but the event wasn’t about winning, not anymore than it was about losing or bragging rights.

It was a little about art, a little about whimsy, a little about the DaVinci in us all and a little bit about maintaining a hold on the childish delight in silliness that sometimes leaves us as we get older.